


We Ate The Poison Apple (We Ate The Golden Fruit)

by Jen425



Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Gaim, Tokusatsu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Ghosts, Kaito Wins AU, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26711932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: Mai appears and says “Micchy, Kaito won.” And there’s terror on her voice. And grief.
Relationships: Kazuraba Kouta/Kumon Kaito/Kureshima Mitsuzane/Takatsukasa Mai
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	We Ate The Poison Apple (We Ate The Golden Fruit)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lionwingz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionwingz/gifts).



> Ahhh yes. Them. These four.
> 
> A mess.

Kureshima Mitsuzane survives.

He doesn’t want to. When it had all begun, he had been happy to stay in that old abandoned hospital and waste away, rotting in the puddle of salt that was his pathetic tears.

Happy to waste away in his own worthlessness.

But then Mai appears and says “Micchy, Kaito won.” And there’s terror on her voice. And grief.

And of course he knew that would be the fight. The battle. Kouta and Kaito.

And of course Kaito won. Even if Kouta had somehow survived what Micchy himself had done, he must have been injured still, while Kaito was… well, he was Kaito. He just took a Sengoku Driver and must have killed Sengoku Ryoma with his Genesis, since the scientist hadn’t returned.

And now Mai was off to make Kumon Kaito a god.

And he is here, sobbing in an abandoned hospital.

He survives.

  
  
  


_ “Micchy…” _

The Kouta phantom is kinder than the one of his brother had been, Mitsuzane thinks. Sad and apologetic. Proud sometimes, when Mitsuzane manages to help people.

There at odd times, with no sense to them.

Every detail of this world to Kaito’s whim, Mitsuzane is unsurprised when he notices the people he can save are slowly growing armor. It’s in the air now. Earth  _ is _ Helheim now, and thus Kaito can do as he will.

If he wants a world utterly destroyed so it can be remade without endless competition, so be it. It would be a logical goal if the methods weren’t horrific and in themselves driven by competition.

And Mitsuzane can’t truly stop him, it’s too late for that.

His brother is dead. Kouta is dead. Mai is…

Whatever she is now. A god who loves and is loved by a monster and has no choice but to stay with him.

_ “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him,” _ Kouta says one day, after Mitsuzane rescues an encampment from an Invess attack. The encampment is running low on supplies. The people in it will soon fight, and those who survive in this world will morph to fit into it.

“It’s not your fault, Kouta,” Mitsuzane says without thinking. “It’s mine. And now this is the world.”

_ “Still, I’m sorry,” _ Kouta replies.  _ “I’m glad you’re trying to help others, now.” _

“It’s what you would do,” Mitsuzane replies.

_ “I know,” _ the phantom says.  _ “I hope eventually you can do it for yourself.” _

“I…” Mitsuzane says, looking away from the phantom. “I couldn’t say.”

When he turns back, Kouta has already faded away.

  
  
  


Mitsuzane doesn’t know how to define his relationship with Kumon Kaito. Too impersonal to be enemies. Too different to acknowledge how similar their philosophies really were. They simply exist in the context of the same battle, and, somehow, they both remain alive.

Opposing corners of a square, never touching but for how they’re both tied up in Kouta, Mai, and the fate of the world.

And Kumon Kaito, with conviction to back his power and no friend to stab him through right before the fateful battle, had been the survivor.

Kumon Kaito, not left with the weight of the only thing worthy or unworthy in the world, had been the victor.

Mitsuzane will give him this much credit. Whatever world he wanted, he started everyone at an equal playing field. He remembers before the media started collapsing that Kaito had slaughtered all those already at the top.

  
  
  


“Mai.”

“Micchy.”

It’s a large world. Of course it’s two years after it ends before he sees her again. That’s for the better, he thinks. He had hurt her in his delusions, and he had let her die.

And now all he can do is weakly protect the survivors of this world.

He thinks about when Kaito said strength and weakness no longer applied to him, and maybe that’s still true. Following the philosophy of a dead man who lost the battle of the world’s fate is certainly some form of stupidity.

But he’s still here.

“How are you?” Mai asks.

“I’m alive,” Mitsuzane replies. “How are you?”

Mai sighs.

“I’m…” she starts. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“I know what you tried to do,” Mitsuzane says. “I remember the dream you left me. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

He’s sorry for a lot of things, but guilt is his only friend. Well, that and the phantom.

Mai’s smile is sad. It looks wrong on her face.

“It’s in the past,” she says. “You can’t change the past.” The “but I tried and failed” goes unsaid. “What matters is that we’re both still here.”

She says nothing untrue.

Mitsuzane sighs, taking off his Rider armor for the first time in some time.

He could perhaps allow himself to evolve with the forest as it eats away at the land which still grows foods o the old world, but his slowly forming natural armor is in familiar shades of green and white that make him shudder. Patterned in just a way to make his hands tremble.

Make him think of the brother he betrayed and the monster who he let use him.

Ryugen is a protective coating. He almost forgets his name is Mitsuzane, forgets he once went by “Micchy”, except that the phantom still haunts him.

But it feels wrong in front of Mai, who is surely not human but is still standing in whatever form she has.

One red eye to match the way his eyes had shifted to violet several months ago.

He doesn’t remove his belt.

“I miss dancing,” Mai says. “I miss… what used to be.”

“I know,” Mitsuzane replies.  _ I did everything in my power to preserve your world and it wasn’t enough. _ “I do, too.”

  
  
  


He doesn’t know how, but he starts seeing more of her, after that day.

  
  
  


“Kumon Kaito.”

“It’s Overlord Baron.”

This one is somehow more surprising than Mai or Kouta, this is just…

The Overlord’s form is red and black, though he drops the armor to reveal white clothing, golden hair. It looks wrong on him like a think coat of paint.

“I don’t care about that,” Mitsuzane says simply. “I don’t have anything left, if you want to kill me.”

Kaito looks him up and down.

“You’ve changed,” he says. “It’s deeper than before.”

“Isn’t that the nature of your world?”

He’s the same age Kouta was when he died now, Mitsuzane thinks, and he’s passed trying to fight Kumon Kaito’s world off of his body. Perhaps that’s why Kaito is here, because Mitsuzane had plucked a fruit.

“I wonder what would happen if I ate this now,” he says. “I could never defeat you.”

_ “Micchy…” _

“This doesn’t mean I’ll stop fighting,” Mitsuzane promises the phantom. “I’m not giving up, I’m evolving. There’s no other choice.”

He knows by now that Mai can see Kouta as well. Presumably, so can Kaito.

He thinks he can see Kouta because Kouta had locked onto him as the closest-to-the-fight survivor of significant importance to retain their humanity.

Mai appears next. It’s like they all know.

Perhaps even Kaito knows, this is their worst fate.

Perhaps it’s fitting that all four are here, in this final end. As he becomes the first true Overlord of this new world.

As he is weak and useless, not a mover of fate like them, but he can still break the nature of Kumon Kaito’s world.

**Author's Note:**

> And so yeah this is definitely the bad ending timeline.
> 
> Hope you liked this either way!


End file.
